“It’s kind of tricky setting hooks by yourself,” said Mr. Brown. At 41, he is one of the younger members of the aging cadre that still plumbs these waters for groundfish, but he has reluctantly listed his boat for sale. “I don’t want to give up, and I really want to find a way to try and stay on the water, but I really just don’t see a way at the moment,” he said.

Mr. Brown is one of hundreds of fishermen caught in the net that has tightened around this industry and its seaside communities as the numbers of both fish and boats appear to be at historically low levels. Changes in the ecosystem, lingering effects of decades of overfishing and imperfect fishery management could all be to blame for the crisis, depending on whom you ask.

“My vision is, it’s more comprehensive than just taking care of one fisherman.” Carolyn Kirk, the mayor of Gloucester, Mass., concerning her plan to diversify the area’s economy

That declaration paved the way for Congress to appropriate financial relief to those areas — a stop-and-start process that saw $150 million attached to, then stripped from, the Hurricane Sandy relief bill. Recently, Representative John Tierney, a Democrat of Massachusetts, proposed legislation that would draw aid money from a tax on imported fish.

But the prospect of significant money coming into the community has ignited a debate here over who gets it, dividing the fishermen on the piers, who see it as a lifeline in a time of deep struggle, from city officials who agree, but would also like to spend some of it as a boost to a new shoreline economy.

On a cold winter day, Carolyn Kirk, the mayor of Gloucester, looked over a fallow stretch of the inner harbor where a white sign read “Under Idea Development.” This, she says, could be a research center or the home of an ocean technology company. She hopes businesses like that could help Gloucester maintain its economic identity as a port city, even as the fishing fleet shrinks.

“I don’t want to give up, and I really want to try and stay on the water, but I really just don’t see a way at the moment.” B.G. Brown, a second-generation fisherman

Craig Dilger for The New York Times

“T-shirts, taffy, not interested,” said Ms. Kirk, alluding to coastal communities like Hampton, N.H., that have built boardwalk economies. “How do we take the working port and put it back to work in a different kind of way?”

To Ms. Kirk, a former management consultant who is running for a fourth two-year term, the disaster money is an opportunity to help the fishermen — but also to diversify the economy, which she thinks could position itself at the center of the marine science and technology sector. That, she hopes, could help the city rebuild its economy as have some Massachusetts mill cities, like Lowell and Worcester, that now host biotech companies and warehouse apartments.

“If we rely on the romance associated with the fishing industry, we will lose the port, we will lose the infrastructure, we will lose our heritage and authenticity,” Ms. Kirk said.

If Congress appropriates the full $150 million, Mayor Kirk thinks some of it should be used for direct aid to the fishing industry, “but then let’s also do some other things,” she said.

A freshly caught cod.

Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times

“Programs that might attract those other uses that allow you to maintain a smaller fleet, and maintain an infrastructure for that fleet, and sit side by side,” she explained. “My vision is, it’s more comprehensive than just taking care of one fisherman.”

Ms. Kirk is the first to admit that suggesting using any of the money for anything other than direct aid is controversial. “I made my vision and perspective known, and I had a line out the door of fishermen banging on my door, wanting to see me right away,” she said.

One of those fishermen was Paul Vitale. “She’s trying to get money to fix the city — that shouldn’t come out of my pocket,” Mr. Vitale said. “It shouldn’t go to anyone but the fishermen.”

Mr. Vitale and many other fishermen here say the aid offers them a way to hold on until the stocks rebound and the industry readjusts, and is intended to preserve this storied industry and individual livelihoods. A rebuilt infrastructure will not help, some say, if there is no fleet to use it.

Video Jim Ford, a cod fisherman out of Gloucester, Mass., faces an uncertain future after the New England Fisheries Management Council voted Wednesday on painful reductions to cod harvests.

Katherine Taylor for The New York Times

Russell Sherman stood at the wheel of his boat, the Lady Jane, as light faded and his crew prepared to dock for the night. He made $19,800 fishing last year, he said, and at 64 is afraid he will go into foreclosure. “People are on the hook for money, and they’re not going to be able to pay it off,” said Mr. Sherman, who is a founding member of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an industry group that supports fishermen and has pushed against deep cuts to the industry. “Desperate situation.”

“This is a harbor, it has a lot of potential, a lot of research potential and stuff, but that shouldn’t come out of our back. We’re going to try the best we can to get as many guys through this. I won’t get through it, but there will be younger fishermen who will,” Mr. Sherman said.

Mr. Brown hopes that aid might allow him to hold on. “I have huge bills on my permits that I had to buy just to stay in it. So whatever money I get from that, maybe it’ll cover those bills, but then the rest of my expenses, just living — and I’m not counting on it being much, usually there’s too many hands in the pie, you know,” he said.

Others hope the money can be used to reshape the industry itself. Chris Duffey, who runs the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange — a seafood auction through which local fish are bought and sold — has watched as commercially successful species like cod and haddock have dwindled. He says the money should be used strategically, to promote the sale of underused yet plentiful species like dogfish and skate, “instead of having Band-Aids to put on people who cry the loudest.”

“Let’s stop crying about the fish that’s gone and start talking about how we can sell the fish that’s here,” Mr. Duffey said.